A respected colleague recently suggested Andy Clark’s Being There as a read to characterize the new views of cognition, so I checked it out.  The book covers the new emerging views of cognition, grounded in the connectionist revolution and incorporating a wide variety of neural and robotic studies. The interesting thing to me are the implications for learning and instruction.

The book makes the case that the way we think is not only heavily tied to our contexts, but that we co-construct the world in ways that affect our thinking in profound ways.  Studies across economic behavior, animal cognition, simulation studies, and more are integrated to make the point that they way we think is very different than the models of conscious minds sitting in meat vehicles.  Instead, we’re very driven from below and outside, and our conscious thinking is rare, hard, and language based.  Moreover, the constructs we create to think affect our thinking, making it easier. We automate much not only through learning, but we externalize.  And, our representations and understanding are very much constructed ‘on the fly’ in each new situations, as opposed to existing abstract and robust.

This isn’t easy reading.  Clark is a philosopher of mind, and covers much complex research and deep neuroscience.  The emergent picture, however, is of a mind very different than the cognitivist model.  I’m grateful that while I pursued my PhD in Cog Psych, the research going on in our co-shared lab by Rumelhart and McClelland on connectionist networks sensitized me to this viewpoint, and Hutchins work on Cognition in the Wild was similarly taking place at the same time.   Despite the challenge, there are important reasons to get our minds around this way of thinking.

The notion that providing abstract knowledge will lead to any meaningful outcome has already pretty much been debunked both empirically and theoretically.  What these models seem to suggest is that what can and will work is deep scaffolded practice and guided reflection, based upon a situated cognition. For other reasons, this is the model that Collins and Brown had in Cognitive Apprenticeship, and now we’ve a more solid philosophical basis for it.  (I also think that there are rejoinders to Kirschner, Sweller, & Clark, and Anderson, Reder, & Simon; discussing how language, including writing, is social, and that iterations between abstract models and meaningful practice is guided reflection.)

This model suggests that language is our differentiator, and that much of our higher level cognition is mediated through language.  There’s a reason consciousness feels like a dialog.  Much of our processing is beneath consciousness, and things we monitor and develop through language become compiled away inaccessible to language.

The point, to me, is that the activity-based learning model I’ve proposed has both bottom up grounding in new cognitive models, theoretical framing from anchored instruction and social constructivism, as well as empirical validity from apprenticeships and work-place learning. We need to start aligning our learning design to the cognitive realities.

BJ Fogg, known from his work on persuasive technology, talked about making persistent behavior change via tiny habits. Very interesting research with important implications both personally and commercially.

Inspired by Dave Cormier’s learning contract, and previous work at learner-defined syllabi and assessment, I had a thought about learner-created project evaluation rubrics. I’m sure this isn’t new, but I haven’t been tracking this space (so many interests, so little time), so it’s a new thought for me at any rate ;).

It occurred to me that, at least for somewhat advanced learners (middle school and beyond?), I’d like to start having the learners propose evaluation criteria for rubrics.  Why? Because, in the course of investigating what should  be important, they’re beginning to learn about what is  important.  Say, for instance, they’re designing a better services model for a not-for-profit (one of the really interesting ways to make problems interesting is to make them real, e.g. service learning).  They should create the criteria for success of the project, and consequently the criteria for the evaluation of the project. I wouldn’t assume that they’re going to get it right initially, and provide scaffolding, but eventually more and more responsibility devolves to the learner.

This is part of good design; you should be developing your assessment criteria as part of the analysis phase, e.g. before you start specifying a solution.  This helps learners get a better grasp on the design process as well as the learning process, and helps them internalize the need to have quality criteria in mind. We’ve got to get away from a vision where the answers are ‘out there’, because increasingly they’re not.

This also ties into the activity model I’ve been talking about, in that the rationale for the assessment is discussed explicitly, make the process of learning and thinking transparent and ‘out loud’.  This develops both domain skills and meta-learning skills.

It is also another ‘flip’ of the classroom to accompany the other ways we’re rethinking education.  Viva La Revolucion!

In discussing the activity-based learning model the other day, I realized that there had to be another layer to it.  Just as a reflection by the learner on the product they produce as the outcome of an activity should be developed, there’s another way in which reflection should come into play.

What I mean here is that there should be a reflection layer on top of the curricula and the content as well, this time by the instructor and administration. In fact, there may need to be several layers.

For one, the choice of activities should be made explicit in terms of why they’re chosen and how they instantiate the curricula goals.  This includes the choice of products and guidance for reflection activities.  This is for a wide audience, including fellow teachers, administrators, parents, and legislators.  Whoever is creating the series of activities should be providing a design rationale for their choice of activities.

Second, the choice of content materials associated with the activities should have a rationale. Again, for  fellow teachers, administrators, parents, and legislators.  Again, a design rationale makes a plausible framework for dialog and improvement.

In both cases, however, they’re also for the learners.  As I subsequently indicated, I gradually expect learners to take responsibility for setting their own activities, as part of the process of becoming self learners.  Similarly, the choice of products, content materials, and reflections will become the learners to improve their meta-learning skills.

All together, this is creating a system that is focused on developing meaningful content and meta-learning skills that develops learners into productive members of the society we’re transitioning into.

(And as a meta-note, I can’t figure out how to graft this onto the original diagram, without over-crowding the diagram, moving somehow to 3D, or animating the elements, or…  Help!)